


The Cover-up

by seelight



Category: Avengers: Endgame - Fandom, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 21:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18600073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seelight/pseuds/seelight
Summary: Why Hawkeye has such a hideous tattoo in Avengers: Endgame.





	The Cover-up

He sat down heavily into the cracked vinyl seat. Hard to be here again; this was the first place he went after ... after *it* all happened, after he called the cops, called S*H*I*E*L*D, called the Avengers' administrative assistant's private line, called his in-laws, anyone, anyone who could tell him it was a misunderstanding and he hadn't just watched his entire family turn into leaves and dust.  
  
He found he was picking at the fraying edge of the maroon vinyl piping with his off hand and forced himself to stop. He turned another page in the binder. These drawings were all ugly. The "artist"--was his name "Vinnie" or "Mercy"? Both names suggested themselves from a very blurred memory, but logic would indicate that both were wrong. Better to not name him at all--the artist was bustling around in the back room, looking for green ink. He'd said no one wanted colors since the ... since *it* happened. The artist didn't know why. The assassin did.  
  
He'd first stumbled into the tattoo parlor years ago in a haze of ... something. This tattoo parlor ... it had never looked that great to him. It was just the one he passed every week on his way into town. It was symbolic, for some reason, of the youth and "freedom" he'd so eagerly given up to settle down with Laura and "start pushing out puppies" as she'd always called it.  
  
He hadn't been allowed to get tattoos during his most-likely-to-get-embarassing-tattoos years; the circus was always switching out their costumes and moving the burnt-out sections to reveal yet another swath of unblemished skin. And then he'd been in The Life, in S*H*I*E*L*D, in places where he needed his ordinary face and dishwater hair and unremarkability to be his best defense.  
  
In his head he'd lived an alternate life, an ordinary life where his parents were accountants or teachers or plumbers, and he'd gone to high school and bought and fixed up a Detroit steel muscle car and gotten a tattoo with friends one drunken night and then gone on to trade school, or maybe even college, and a career, and a mortgage, and gotten married and had 2.3 kids ... and somehow out of all of that, the tattoo had stuck in his head as the element of the ordinary life--the freedom and youth and Americana-- that he'd never had a chance at.  
  
And then Laura had come along and made him see that he didn't have to give up anything, at least, not anything he really wanted.  
After *it*, he'd gone straight to the horrible, strip mall tattoo parlor and pointed at the first thing he'd seen on the wall, a hideous, Ed-Hardy-esque pin-up girl with weird eyebrows that ended up making her--on his skin, at least--look like a vampire. He'd just needed to get some ink into his skin. Something, anything to break its purity. The uglier, the more it hurt, the better.  
  
The artist hadn't looked at all surprised when he came back in requesting a cover-up. My god, he thought, take some pride in your work, man. For a moment he considered going to another--a better--place. But then, he'd chosen this one for a reason. Tired of himself, tired of despair, tired of grief, he'd taken on a Mission. And he needed a cover: ironically, the alternate-life, tattooed, muscle-car-fixing, trade-school-graduate self he'd invented so long ago was the perfect cover ... merged a bit with his real self, that is. Instead of trade school, this guy went into the army. Instead of a career as plumber, he was tapped for special ops. Etc.  
  
But the drunken high-school tattoo remained. And it needed to fit this dummy Barton's predilections. He was a Japanophile, so it would have to be cheesy Japanesey. And it couldn't be too ... *good* ... it couldn't be too tasteful or meaningful. It had to be bad, and big ... and have skulls ...  
  
He turned another page and ... Vinnie? ... Mercy? ... the dude came back in with several vials of bilious green ink. His eyes fell on the drawing Barton had just uncovered.  
  
"Oh, that's something I'm still playing with," the artist said. "You'll probably want to go for something more finished."  
  
Barton shook his head. Japanese-y? Check. Skulls? Check. Even a bit of faux tribal trim, something he'd imagined for Mission-Barton but hadn't quite been able to envision? Double Check. It was perfectly repulsive. It was perfect.  
  
"No, I want this one," he said.


End file.
